Sheldon's No Good Terrible Very Bad Days
by x Varda x
Summary: A series of stories where Sheldon has bad days, mishaps and accidents. Latest story: The Lizard/Bat Splicing.
1. The Laser Beam Ouchy

_A/N - I just recently watched all the way through The Big Bang Theory (I hadn't seen it before *gasp*) and have fallen in love with Sheldon (I clearly have a thing for snarky physicists). I'm a hurt comforter at heart so here's my first foray into TBBT fanfic. I'm hoping to make this a series but I'll have to see where the plot bunnies take me._

**The Laser Beam Ouchy**

Leonard was busy typing on his laser control console when the door to his lab swung open. He only had a moment to register the tall man who entered and shout, "Sheldon, no!" when the pre-programmed laser aimed at the well protected wall near the door fired.

Instead of hitting the wall, its path was halted by Sheldon's midsection. Leonard hit the big red kill button as Sheldon yelped, "Ouch!"

Sheldon was pawing at the small smoking hole in his shirt. "This is one of my favourite shirts!"

"What were you thinking, coming in here when the door was closed?" Leonard said as he cautiously approached his friend. "It does warn about live lasers."

Sheldon was starting to look distinctly ill at ease and his pawing had now turned to clutching at his abdomen. "I... came to say I finished my formula and to... see if you wanted an early lunch."

"It's a pretty powerful laser, did it hurt you?"

Sheldon nodded and grimaced.

"Come on, let's get you to the nurse."

"I'm not sure what she could do," Sheldon protested. "The wound is already cauterised." But his body didn't protest as Leonard guided him out of the lab.

Sheldon was uncharacteristically quiet as he limped his way to the nurse and Leonard used the opportunity to say, "I'm sorry, Sheldon. I should've locked the door."

"Too right you should have. A child could've wandered in."

Leonard bit his lip.

"Would you like me to hold your hand when you go in?" Leonard asked as they approached the nurse's office.

They stopped outside the door and Sheldon turned to him and said, "No."

"I'll just wait out here then."

"I didn't say you didn't have to come in with me, just no hand holding."

"Oh," Leonard smiled. "Okay."

The nurse was a businesslike woman who immediately ordered Sheldon to lie down on the examining bed.

"You've got to be kidding," Sheldon tried to fold his arms but the movement made his face twist in pain. "Sick people lay there. I don't want what they had."

"Be nice, Sheldon," Leonard warned as he settled in a chair. "She's the one with the needles."

Sheldon looked wide eyed at the nurse. "Are you going to stab me with needles?"

"I don't know yet. What can I do for you?"

Sheldon said, "Dr. Hofstatder shot me with a laser."

"Uh huh. Where?"

"Can't you see the huge hole in my shirt?"

"I don't care about the shirt, what did it do to you?"

"Don't care about the shirt?" Sheldon said in exasperation. "This is a limited edition black Superman shirt."

Leonard interrupted. "And Superman wouldn't have let himself get shot by a laser."

"I didn't _let_ myself get shot. You pulled the trigger."

The nurse held up her hand to stop their bickering. "Lift it up and let's see what we're dealing with."

"I'm not lifting up my shirt! It hurts a lot but it's already cauterised. I don't see how looking at it is going to change anything."

The nurse snapped on some blue gloves and indicated Leonard before addressing Sheldon, "Would you like me to ask him to leave."

Sheldon lifted his chin a little and eyed Leonard. "No. It's okay. Let him see what he did." Sheldon lifted the edge of his shirt and revealed the expanse of pale skin that was his abdomen. To the left of his navel was an angry red-black burn mark a few millimetres across. The skin around the mark was red too.

The nurse checked his back. "Well, it didn't go all the way through." She moved in to touch him and Sheldon quickly backed off and lowered his shirt. The nurse sighed and looked to Leonard for support. Leonard could only shrug.

The nurse went to her workstation and took off the gloves, throwing them away. She grabbed a swab, some antiseptic, a box of pills and a few small square bandages then turned around. She looked between the men watching her and then passed the items to Leonard. "Make sure he cleans the wound and takes some painkillers. If it gets any worse, take him to the hospital."

"Okay, thank you."

Sheldon was staring at the nurse, deep in thought until Leonard interrupted him. "Come on, Dr. Cooper. Let's go."

xxx

"What happened to you?" Penny asked from where she sat on the sofa with Sheldon, tucking into their food.

"Leonard shot me."

"Took him long enough."

"It's not funny," Sheldon said, trying to shift himself and stopping with a wince. "It hurts."

Leonard came back and set down three bottles of water for them. "It would hurt a lot less if you took the painkillers the nurse gave you."

"I can't." He addressed Penny, "They make me crazy."

Penny and Leonard shared a knowing look.

"I said I was sorry, Sheldon," Leonard said. "But you need to help yourself."

And it just went to show how much pain he was in that Sheldon soon gave in and swallowed a couple of the tablets. "Don't say I didn't warn you when I do something crazy later."

xxx

Leonard woke up abruptly at 3am to the sound of muttering coming from outside his door. Pressing his ear to the door seemed like a good thing to do to make sure it wasn't someone breaking in, but the voice was definitely that of his wayward room-mate.

The sight that greeted him was not all that unusual - Sheldon scribbling formulae on a whiteboard and mumbling to himself.

"Sheldon, it's three in the morning. What are you doing?"

"Very important things. I'm calculating the velocity at which a cat needs to be travelling in order to jump through a cat flap."

"Uh huh." Leonard eyed the formulae and shook his head. "Have you figured it out yet?"

"Nearly. But there are so many variables: size of cat, weight of cat, cat flap size, height from floor..."

Leonard stepped a little closer, but not too close. "How about you go to sleep and come back to it in the morning?"

Sheldon turned back to the board and scribbled some more numbers. "But I'm so close now."

"Okay, well, keep it down, some people are trying to sleep."

"No problemo," Sheldon said with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.

_Fin_

xxx

_A/N – I have a few more ideas about further hurty stories for Sheldon, but I'm always open to suggestions :)_


	2. The Car Crash Certainty

_A/N – It took me a couple of weeks to finish this one and pluck up enough courage to post it. I changed the title of the series and the description to fit more with what it is. I also upped the rating to T for blood and injury detail. This story is set in either the latter half of S5 or S6 and has a canon level of Sheldon/Amy._

**The Car Crash Certainty**

"Your check engine light is on," Sheldon said.

Penny took a breath and counted to ten. Every time she gave Sheldon a lift somewhere, he would point out the same obvious thing like clockwork. The urge to stop the car and tell him to get out dissipated as she reached ten and instead she managed a curt, "I know."

"Don't you think that it might need checking considering it's been on since the first time I was in this car?"

"Probably. When it stops working I'll get right on it. But until then, if you say another word about it, you're walking home."

Sheldon pulled the seatbelt tighter across his chest and tensed up.

Penny drove through the green light at the next junction and had a fleeting glimpse of a truck approaching from the passenger side. There was a huge jolt and a deafening sound, then just as abruptly as the impact had occurred, she lost awareness.

xxx

Penny woke up to a particularly painful throb in her head. She coughed and winced and cracked her eyes open. There was a smashed windscreen before her and a crooked steering wheel. Then it all came back to her. She'd crashed her car! But she hadn't been alone. She'd picked Sheldon up from Amy's place on her way home from the Cheesecake Factory.

Penny looked to the passenger side and found Sheldon. He was slumped unconscious in his seat. At least she hoped he was only unconscious as she watched a trail of blood leaking down the side of his slack face. The passenger side door was caved in where the truck was now firmly embedded in the side of her car. She reached a trembling hand across and pressed it against his neck. She held her breath and after a few seconds she felt a pulse tapping against her fingers.

"Sheldon, can you hear me?"

There was no response.

"Help!" Penny called out, turning to her window and seeing stationary cars. "Someone call 911!"

"Not so loud," a weak voice said from next to her.

"Sheldon!" Penny turned back to him and he looked at her with glassy eyes. "We've had an accident."

"That much is apparent." He coughed and shuddered, reaching an unsteady hand up and curling it around his chest.

"Do you think you can climb out?"

Sheldon blinked sleepily and looked at his door. "Considering... the crumpled metal... and other factors... I'd say not."

"I meant my door, sweetie." Penny reached down and tried the handle and her door popped open as though nothing had happened.

Sheldon tried to take a breath, but it stopped halfway. "No."

Penny heard sirens in the distance and people were approaching her car. Her head was throbbing in time with her pulse and she thought it wouldn't be much longer until she threw up. "How badly are you hurt?" she asked Sheldon, trying to take her mind off her own misery.

"My chest," Sheldon said with a cough which made bright red blood appear on his lips.

Penny felt a cold chill of horror go through her or maybe it was the shock settling in her bones.

Sheldon brought a pale hand up to his face and wiped his thin fingers across his mouth and then looked at them. "Oh. Is that my blood?"

Penny wasn't sure how to react and her headache was getting worse, making it hard to think or focus or even just a simple thing like staying conscious.

He splayed his fingers out to examine them more closely. He took a gasping breath that wheezed on the way out. A whisper left him, "It's hard to breathe."

"Stay with me," Penny said through gritted teeth and now unable to look at him. "We still need someone to solve the mysteries of the universe."

If Sheldon ever replied, Penny never found out, because the emergency services had just arrived. They got her out the car and on a gurney in record time. She insisted on staying at the scene to make sure Sheldon was okay.

She watched in a detached haze as paramedics swarmed around the stricken figure inside her car. She couldn't see whether Sheldon was conscious or not, she wished she was closer. They strapped a collar around his neck and placed a mask over his face. A couple of paramedics stayed in the car with him, one in the driver's seat and one behind as the roof was cut off. Huh, she'd quite liked that car, it'd seen her through a lot of things despite its persistent check engine light.

The roof came off distressingly fast, but the car was already totalled. Penny's heart dropped at the speed in which the medical people got Sheldon on his own gurney and in the back of a second ambulance which immediately zoomed off with its lights and siren blaring.

"Will he be all right?" Penny asked the EMT that had climbed in the back of the ambulance with her.

"I don't know, but we'll follow him in."

The ambulance ride passed in a blur of fear and light headedness, or that might have been Penny's injuries asserting themselves now that the initial adrenaline was wearing off.

xxx

Penny waited in the hospital as her and Sheldon's friends arrived. "They discharged me," she parroted back for the umpteenth time as Howard and Bernadette came in last. Leonard, Amy and Raj were already there. She laughed hollowly, "Minor concussion. They didn't even need to admit me but said if I throw up I'm to come back in. Everything is exactly where it should be in me."

There was silence where Sheldon might have made a comment that even if Penny had a worse head injury it probably wouldn't affect her too much.

"And how's Sheldon?" Bernadette asked. "We only heard you'd been in a crash."

Amy was holding her handbag tightly in her lap where she sat. "We don't know yet."

"He said he hurt his chest," Penny said while looking at the opposite wall. "He was coughing up blood. It was really red. I've never seen blood that red before."

Howard said, "I always thought his blood would be android milky-white and that if he ever got damaged, his mothership would come down with spare parts."

"I assure you, his blood is red," Amy said, looking visibly more upset than a moment ago.

"It sure is," Penny agreed with a faraway stare, abruptly coming back to the present to look at Amy, "I saw it today, but how did you know?"

"He cut his thumb in my lab once. He's definitely a red blooded male." She smiled grimly.

A man in a white coat came into the waiting area and called out, "Amy Farrah Fowler?"

Amy took a deep breath and stood up. "That's me." Penny stood with her and grabbed her hand - they both needed it for what might be to come.

The doctor approached, "I have you down as Mr Cooper's emergency contact."

"It's Dr. Cooper," Amy corrected, "But go on."

"Dr. Cooper is in a serious but stable condition."

Penny felt Amy squeeze her hand tightly and she squeezed back.

"He's got three broken ribs, one of which punctured a lung, along with deep abdominal bruising from the seatbelt."

There was a slight tremble in Amy's voice as she asked, "The prognosis?"

"We're draining his chest at the moment and monitoring the bruising, but if it doesn't get better, he might need surgery."

Amy blinked rapidly but her voice was steady as she responded, "Thank you, Doctor. Keep us apprised."

"Can we see him?" Leonard asked.

"Yes. Try not to be too alarmed by the machines around him."

The moment the doctor had given them Sheldon's room number and departed, Amy flung her arms around Penny and gave her a tight hug. Penny hugged back and closed her eyes. If Sheldon died, her life and the lives of those around her would never be the same again.

xxx

Amy didn't like to see Sheldon lying in the hospital bed with all those machines around him. Leads and tubes were going into and out of him under his hospital shirt. The only colour on his face was the dark red stitched cut on his forehead and the red circles around his eyes.

Penny was with her, grasping her hand for moral support but it still couldn't help the fact that the machines surrounding the man in the bed appeared to be showing more signs of life than him. Their hands broke apart as they located chairs and pulled them as close to Sheldon as they could without disturbing any of the medical equipment.

"Would you like to be alone?" Penny asked.

"No, please stay."

Amy reached forwards and hesitated for a moment before she gently took Sheldon's hand. It was slack in hers and felt cool to touch but it made her feel slightly better. There was an unusual peace about an unconscious Sheldon that Amy had rarely experienced. He was so full of life and brilliance when awake that seeing him like this was almost unbearable.

"I really don't mind leaving if you want me to," Penny said.

"You... crashed... car," a weak voice said.

"Sheldon!" Amy said peering into his face as he started to wake up but kept his eyes closed.

"I didn't crash it," Penny sounded indignant. "The truck crashed into us."

"Well that explains some things," Sheldon said, sounding a little stronger.

"You hurt your chest and belly on the seatbelt," Amy said.

Sheldon's face scrunched up a little and his breathing got shallower and more laboured, "It does hurt. IQ double... that of most people... and I only just realised."

Penny pressed the call button and a moment later they were asked to leave by the same doctor who had spoken to them before, but not before he reassured them that Sheldon waking up was a good sign.

xxx

Sheldon was discharged a week later with strict instructions for rest and a bag of pills he was still too weak to try and lift. His mother had visited on more than one occasion but Amy had managed to persuade her that she had it covered.

They went back to Sheldon's apartment because there was more room but mainly because Sheldon had insisted. They had to take frequent breaks on the way up the stairs and Sheldon was exhausted and breathless by the time they finally reached the apartment.

"Being injured involves more touching than I'm comfortable with," he said as Amy kept a firm hold on him to stop him from falling over.

"It's for your own good."

"That's what the nurses kept saying, but I didn't like it. Especially not all the needles."

"Here we are," Amy said as she produced a key to 4A and opened the door.

"Where did you get that?"

"It's your key."

"I ask the same question."

"I stole it from your clammy unconscious fingers while you were laid up."

"Oh. Another disadvantage to being at the mercy of other people."

She closed the door behind them and regarded Sheldon who was barely standing upright on his own and it looked like a breeze would bend and break him. His face was even paler than it had been when she'd got him out the car and he had an arm drawn across his midsection where he breathed shallowly.

"Are you in pain? Because I brought all your pills with me."

"Yes."

"Bed or couch?"

Sheldon looked around and blinked slowly. "I'm sleepy."

"Bed it is then."

Amy gave him the painkillers and then helped him change into his pajamas. She managed to hide the wince from him that she made every time she'd seen his bruised body this past week but he caught her expression this time.

He had always been thin in the time she'd known him, but it seemed that even just one week of IV fluids and then the small amounts of hospital food he was able to keep down had made him lose even more weight. It was like he was now just a layer of skin stretched taut over barely enough muscle to keep him upright and certainly not enough to protect his internal organs judging by the deep purple marks on his belly. The left side of his chest was even worse, still almost black in places, even though it had been a week.

"It's rude to stare," Sheldon said as Amy helped him pull one of his arms, then the other into the pajama top.

"I'm sorry. I just feel sad that you were so badly hurt."

"Why do you feel sad? It wasn't your fault and it's me that got hurt."

Amy pursed her lips as she drew back the covers and helped Sheldon into bed. She tucked them around him and then sat beside him on the bed. "It could've been a lot worse."

"But it wasn't."

"Are you still in a lot of pain?" Amy asked, reaching for her bag on the floor.

Sheldon shifted uncomfortably. "Certainly more than I can cope with."

"Oh good. Would you mind if I monitor your brainwaves to see what's going on in there?" She drew a lot of pads and leads out of her bag.

"Can I go to sleep while you're doing it?"

"Yes."

"Will you sing me Soft Kitty?"

Amy sighed and Sheldon narrowed his eyes at the leads until Amy agreed, "If you insist."

"I do."

Amy attached the leads and once they were all in place she started to sing, "Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur..." Sheldon reached forwards and took hold of her hand - the first time he'd initiated it. Amy smiled as she continued to sing and Sheldon closed his eyes.


	3. The Paintball Sortie

**The Paintball Sortie**

There was a certain chill in the air as the Mid-Winter Physics vs Geologists Departmental Paintball Tournament got underway. A cloudless sky promised a cold night to follow, but at the moment there were more important things to be concerned about, like the war that was going on at ground level.

Paint exploded on tree trunks as Leonard, Howard, Raj and Sheldon ran as fast as they could towards the nearest building.

"Shoot back! Shoot back!" Leonard shouted breathlessly while not following his own instructions.

Sheldon narrowly missed getting hit in the back as he took a sharp right turn around the next tree.

"There he is!" a voice shouted from the trees behind them. "Aim for his legs!"

There was a yelp and the sound of a body falling onto leaves.

"Man down! Man down!" Leonard called out.

Raj and Howard were already in the building and Leonard turned just before going inside and watched helplessly as Sheldon was dragged behind some trees by the Geologists and then disappeared from view.

"Sheldon!" Leonard shouted and tried to chase after them, but Howard's arm around his chest stopped him.

"Don't go! It's a trap!" Howard said as he forcefully dragged Leonard into the building and closed the door.

"But he might still be alive!"

"Or he could be dead!" Raj said in dismay. "We need to regroup and devise a strategy."

"I wish Leslie or Penny were here," Howard said.

Leonard lifted his paintball gun higher, "Yes, then we could just send them out to get Sheldon back and wait here."

"Precisely."

Raj glanced between them in distress, "Well I'm glad they're not or else I'd need to be so drunk I'd probably shoot you guys myself."

"From what I saw," Leonard said, "Sheldon only got shot in the leg, possibly both legs, but he was still alive, so this war has turned into a hostage rescue mission and we need a plan."

There was silence only broken by the sounds of the three men catching their breath.

"Come on, think, you guys, think!" Leonard implored.

The other two shrugged and Leonard sighed.

xxx

Sheldon was not having a very nice time as a war criminal of the enemy. He was sitting on the cold ground, having been pushed down there after his chest armour, helmet, goggles and gloves had been forcibly removed. His lower legs hurt where the pellets had hit him and his arms and wrists hurt where they were tied behind his back. His ankles protested the moment more ropes were pulled tight around his legs.

"This is so undignified," he said. "You shot me, I'd dead, now leave me alone."

"You're still alive, Dr. Cooper. And we intend to keep you that way for the time being," a female Geologist said. Sheldon had never bothered to find out their names and wasn't about to start now. He named her Rockhead in his mind.

"Why?"

"Because you broke all our machines at work, so we've taken you from your friends to find out what you did," a large man said. It only took a microsecond for Sheldon to name him The Thing.

"Broke them?"

"You know what you did," Rockhead said menacingly while aiming the business end of her paintball gun at Sheldon's thigh. "And we know it was you."

"Please don't hurt me," Sheldon said as he turned his face away and closed his eyes.

"So tell us how to fix them," The Thing said, "or we'll start removing pieces of you to send back to your little friends cowering in the building."

Sheldon opened his eyes and glared at the man. "You wouldn't!"

The Thing grabbed Sheldon's discarded chest armour and tossed it to one of the two goons keeping watch. Goon Two shot it several times, then Goon One ran into the woods towards the building where Sheldon's team were hiding.

"A message for your friends," Rockhead said. "So tell us what you did and then we'll start playing nicely."

"This isn't part of the game. This is all against the rules."

The Thing planted a boot on Sheldon's chest and shoved him back so his arms and hands were crushed under his weight.

"Ow!" Once the boot was removed, Sheldon rolled onto his side and, expecting to be kicked while he was down and vulnerable, he drew his legs up to protect his midsection.

The Thing merely chuckled and moved away.

"I don't want to play any more," Sheldon said. "You're mean."

"Our machinery stopped working the other day," Rockhead said. "And we know of only one person who puts in weekly, sometimes daily, complaints about the noise."

"Oh," Sheldon said as he struggled back up into a sitting position. "Well the sounds emanating from your lab are far above the acceptable decibel level for the workplace and are therefore unacceptable."

The Thing crouched down and pressed the nozzle of his gun into Sheldon's upper leg.

"Hey, that's going to leave a bruise!" Sheldon said as he squirmed away from the pressure.

"Tell us what you did," The Thing said as he pressed harder. "Make it easy for yourself, Dr. Cooper."

"All right! All right! Although even people with rocks for brains, such as yourselves, should be able to figure out what I did. It's not _hard_."

The Thing jabbed his gun in deeper and growled.

Sheldon yelped. "I took a component out of each of them. They're in my desk drawer!"

The gun was removed and Sheldon sighed with a grimace.

The Thing went back to Rockhead and they conferred briefly before Rockhead approached.

"There, I told you," Sheldon said. "Now will you let me go?"

Rockhead approached, raising her gun and, much to his shock, shot Sheldon three times point blank in the solar plexus which no longer had the armour covering it to protect him.

Sheldon lost his breath and couldn't draw another as the hits winded him and the pain blinded him as he tightly closed his eyes. He felt his body being moved, rolling over and over, and a piece of cloth being shoved in his mouth and drawn around his head to form a gag. Then he fell briefly and landed with a squelchy thump which finally kick-started his diaphragm to work again. He wheezed in a shaky breath through the gag, then coughed as his eyes watered.

"_Now_ you're dead, Dr. Cooper," The Thing's voice floated down to him. "And we're going to take out your little friends. It shouldn't be too difficult."

It wasn't much longer before Sheldon fell down into darkness.

xxx

Leonard, Raj and Howard found Sheldon a couple of hours later after a failed interrogation of the Geologist they'd captured. It was a long time after the three remaining members of the Geologist's team had taken them out to win the match and then gone home without telling them what they'd done with Sheldon. It was starting to get dark and the temperature was dropping.

Leonard jumped down into the muddy ditch beside his friend and brushed the damp leaves and branches away that had been almost covering him. "Oh, no. What did they do to you?"

"What we've all been thinking of doing for the past few years," Howard said with a grin as he took in the gag and the ropes holding Sheldon immobile.

Leonard frowned in concern because Sheldon still hadn't responded to his presence and was shivering with his breath coming in short gasps. "Come on, buddy. Time to wake up and go."

Sheldon didn't respond.

"I think he might be hurt," Leonard said as he untied the gag and started working on the ropes binding his friend's hands behind him. Sheldon's skin was whiter than normal, bordering on a grey hue in places and when Leonard touched Sheldon's bare hands, they were icy cold.

Howard's face fell.

"Should I go and get help?" Raj asked.

"Hot... water... bottle," a sleepy voice said.

"Sheldon!"

Sheldon coughed a few times and winced.

Leonard got the last of the ropes untied and helped Sheldon to sit up. His clothes were covered in mud and felt damp. He hugged his recently freed arms around his torso and rubbed his hands up and down his upper arms to try and get some warmth back and stop the trembling.

"I'm cold. The Geologists were mean to me."

"We can see that," Howard said.

"What did you do to them this time?" Leonard asked as he helped Sheldon to stand up and climb out of the ditch.

"I never do anything to them!"

Raj passed the blanket he'd got from the paintball course owner's supplies to Leonard and Leonard placed it over Sheldon's shoulders and wrapped it around him tightly. Sheldon was freezing and his numb fingers could barely grip it to keep it on no matter how valiantly he tried.

"What about that time you deleted all their sample data?" Raj asked.

"Data? That's wasn't data. I did them a favour making them do it over."

"Or when you replaced their small granite rock fragments with gravel you collected from the car park?" Howard added.

"Or perhaps you insulted their subject again?" Leonard said.

"Oh, please. Geology isn't worth the funding that it takes away from the Physics Department."

"Did you hit your office ceiling with a broom and tell them to be quiet?" Howard asked.

They listed Sheldon's previous pranks on the Geologists all the way back to the car and then together they stuffed a shivering Sheldon into a pile of blankets on the back seat.

xxx

Penny came over to Sheldon and Leonard's apartment later in the evening and found Leonard at his laptop and Sheldon lying asleep on the sofa. Penny did a double take when she saw Sheldon. He had at least four hot water bottles with him, two on his legs and the others tucked down beside him. He was also wrapped in several blankets and there was a bag of frozen peas resting against his middle. Sheldon mumbled softly as he slept, "No, not another avalanche..."

Penny widened her eyes briefly then turned to address Leonard, "So, how was paintballing?"

"Oh, you know, the usual: we shot them, they shot us. They captured Sheldon and made him pay for past crimes. We all got killed trying to rescue him."

"Huh, well, sounds like fun." Penny looked over at the living room table expectantly. "Is it pizza tonight?"

Leonard turned in his chair and smiled. "It sure is. I ordered earlier so it should arrive soon."

Just then, Howard and Raj sneaked in. Penny eyed the bags they were carrying curiously as they approached the slumbering form of their friend on the sofa. They removed several small rocks and stones from the bags and placed them on and around Sheldon and on the table.

"Oh, Sheldon!" Howard sing-songed. "We brought you some presents!"

"But it's not my Birthday," Sheldon said sleepily as he narrowly opened his eyes.

Howard and Raj both held rocks over him.

Sheldon's eyes widened as he fully woke up with a start and then his eyes darted around the sofa and the room to take in all the rocks. He sat bolt upright with a gasping scream. Pebbles clattered and the bag of now-thawed peas fell on the floor as he clutched the blankets tightly around himself.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"No," Howard said. "But you can't deny it was funny."

"Ooooooooooooh," Leonard said as he approached Sheldon and picked up a rock from the table and brandished it at his friend with a smile. "The bad stone is coming to get you!"

Sheldon glared at him. "That's not funny."

"Fear not, we'll get the Geologists next time," Leonard assured him as he went round and collected all the rocks up and put them back in the bags.

There was a knock on the door. "Pizza's here!" Penny said. She added, "Not a moment too soon," under her breath.

"Hopefully it's hot because I'm still freezing cold," Sheldon grumbled as he grabbed a couple of the displaced hot water bottles and hugged them to himself.

"All is fair in love and paintball," Howard explained to Penny as she eyed Sheldon with concern.


	4. The Bus Pants Mugging

_A/N – This one is fairly gory and has a lot of blood in it. Poor Sheldon._

**The Bus Pants Mugging**

Sheldon got off the bus at his stop and began the short walk home in the dark. He was very careful not to touch his contaminated bus pants while he walked, and held the newly purchased comic books away from himself in their plastic bag so they didn't touch him either. It had taken a lot of restraint on his part not to get them out and start reading on the bus. But he knew that if he did, he'd get nauseated and ruin the rest of the evening.

"Hey, you there!"

Sheldon heard the shout but he didn't recognise the voice, so he kept walking.

"I'm talking to you!"

The voice was closer, almost right behind Sheldon, making him jump slightly and quicken his pace. Despite how early it was in the evening, there wasn't anyone else about.

A strong hand closed around Sheldon's upper arm and stopped his forward motion. Sheldon was turned around against his will and came face to face with two men who looked both stupid and mean – not a good combination. However, what they appeared to lack in intelligence, they more than made up for in muscle. They were roughly Sheldon's height, but with arms twice as thick and the shorter of the two looked like his shirt was a few sizes too small.

Sheldon decided to play it cool and asked, "Do I know you?"

"Hand over your wallet and your phone."

"Oh, please," Sheldon sighed. "Petty thievery isn't exactly a lucrative way of making a living. Especially considering I had exactly the right amount of money with me when I left in order to take the bus to the comic book store, purchase the editions which came out today and then return home."

"What's he talking about?" One of the men asked the other.

"No idea and I don't care," the other one answered, sticking a hand in his pocket and drawing something out. There was a small snicking sound as a blade flicked out the end of the object. "Hand over your wallet and phone or I'll gut you like a fish."

Sheldon was staring at the knife, feeling his heart racing while going through the possibilities of what might happen next. He could run, but he wasn't sure they wouldn't chase and catch him to carry out their primitive surgical threat, either that or the man with the knife was an expert thrower and he'd get it in the back. He could shout for help, but there was no one around and no guarantee that anyone would help him before it was too late anyway. Another option was to fight, but he doubted he'd last long. Which led to the most logical solution...

"But I've got my Justice League membership card in my wallet!" Sheldon blurted. "And no money of any kind." He'd spent a lot of his childhood fending off much larger and scarier children trying to steal his things and he wasn't about to let these overgrown bullies have their way.

"Are you bored?" knife man asked the other.

"Yeah."

The man holding the knife lunged and Sheldon lifted his arms to protect his torso. There was a brief sensation of a cold intrusion into his right forearm, which quickly turned into pain and then warmth as he started to bleed.

"Ow!" Sheldon staggered backwards and clutched his arm to his chest, still holding onto the plastic bag with his comics inside. "You stabbed me!" he cried indignantly. "And you ruined my jacket! I like this jacket, I've had it for years." He didn't look at his arm because he knew that if he did, he'd see blood and faint and then the men could do whatever they liked to him.

Sheldon sucked in a shaky breath as he continued to walk backwards and the men rounded on him. He couldn't help it as his eyes glanced down at the blade and saw it was tinged red with his blood. Waves of dizziness washed over him, threatening to drop him at any moment. He said, "You know, you should go and get a job to actually earn the money you make."

His mother's words floated down to him as the knife wielder came at him low and plunged the blade into his body again: _Try not to insult the people attacking you, or they'll only hit you harder._

Sheldon felt his will wavering and his hands shook as he reached into his pocket and got out his phone and wallet and handed them over. He wasted no time in retreating and when he turned to make sure he wasn't being followed, much to his relief, the men had gone. But now he had more pressing matters to attend. Like the fact that he'd been violently stabbed and his breaths were getting faster but their effect on oxygenating his remaining blood was getting worse. He needed to find some way to stop the bleeding but for that, he needed help.

He might be the most intelligent person in the world, but he was stupid to think that he could outsmart a knife. He should've run or just handed his stuff over without question then he might not have been attacked.

How he managed to get all the way back to the apartment is something that Sheldon can't recall later. Luckily the thugs weren't bright enough to take his keys so he got inside the building.

"This sucks," Sheldon said with a wince as pain radiated around his pelvis and down both legs. He felt horribly dizzy and shaky, like his legs were about to give way at any moment.

If the Elves still sung songs of heroic deeds, they'd need to compose a doozy to retell how Sheldon walked, staggered and eventually crawled his way up the stairs and into Apartment 4A. He had to pause for breath on the floor below his apartment and just lay there on the carpet for a few minutes, curled up around his injured arm and side, waiting for the weakness to subside, but it only got worse and he knew it was now impossible for him to get better without help.

"I thought this was my floor," Sheldon said to the door looming over him where he lay. He blinked through the blurriness of his vision and the writing on the door panel formed into 3A. "Where do I live again? Why am I lying on the floor like this?" He closed his eyes tightly and steeled himself for more pain as he rolled over onto all fours so he could crawl.

The Elven song would die on the lips of that fair folk when Sheldon finally entered 4A and as his vision narrowed down to a single point, he found that he couldn't summon up another ounce of energy to keep going. And so he collapsed on the floor and continued to leak, his arm outstretched towards the phone sitting innocuously on the table beside his spot, which might as well have been a light-year away for all the good it could do him now.

xxx

"I had a nice time tonight," Penny said to Leonard as they went through the front door to the apartment block.

"So did I," Leonard said with a grin.

They began to walk up the stairs.

"Would you like to go out again some time next week?" Leonard asked with his face turning hopeful.

"Maybe, can I let you know?"

"Sure, sure."

They reached the second floor and Leonard's eyes moved down to the carpet and noticed a dark spot. "Hey did they forget to clean again?"

Penny also glanced down while they walked up the next flight of stairs. "It seems to be getting worse."

"That's odd. Maybe someone was carrying something that was leaking?"

"Whatever it was, it looks like most of it came out here," Penny said as she frowned down at a very large dark stain on the landing of the floor below theirs.

"Or it might be something more serious," Leonard said in alarm as he noticed a red hand print on the wall leading up to their floor.

They ran the rest of the way and both gasped in shock when they saw that the trail led right to the door of 4A. The red marks were smeared all up the door and on the lock and handle.

"Is that blood?" Penny asked quietly, her face going pale.

"I really hope not," Leonard's voice shook as much as his hands as he pushed the key into the lock, but the door was already unlocked and he braced himself as he pushed it open.

The sight that greeted Penny and Leonard as they went into the apartment was both shocking and unpleasant. Sheldon was lying sprawled face down on the floor, a trail of what was now certainly blood led from the door to his body and there was more around him. There was also a white plastic bag clutched in one of his hands, although it now had droplets of blood all over it.

"Oh my god," Penny gasped.

Leonard was horrified by what he saw, but he had to shelve his feelings as he sprang into action. First he went to his friend and pushed his fingers to Sheldon's neck and closed his eyes as he whispered, "Please... please..."

It took a few moments, but a rapid and weak pulse tapped against his fingers. "Call for an ambulance" he instructed Penny as he tried to locate the source of the bleeding.

Penny still hadn't moved.

"Please hurry!" Leonard implored. "And get me some towels."

Penny snapped out of her shocked trance and pulled out her phone as she made her way to the kitchen and threw a couple of towels to Leonard.

Leonard turned Sheldon over onto his back and found that Sheldon's face was devoid of all colour. Leonard unzipped Sheldon's jacket trying and failing to hide his disgust as his fingers encountered stickiness and got covered in blood.

"I don't know what happened to him!" Penny cried in distress down the phone. "He's covered in blood!"

Leonard encountered a thoroughly blood-soaked shirt underneath Sheldon's jacket and the moment he got the sleeves of the jacket off, he found a nasty wound. It was a neat cut, but looked deep. He wrapped a towel around Sheldon's arm and tied it tightly then kept his hands pressed against it. "I think he's been stabbed."

"They'll be here in five minutes," Penny said as she came over. "Why didn't he phone for help?"

"I don't know." Leonard said as he frowned down at Sheldon's chest which was rising and falling shallowly where he was barely breathing.

"What's wrong?" Penny asked.

"I don't think that can be the only one. There's far too much blood."

"How long has he been lying here?" Penny asked in a small voice. "While we were out at dinner enjoying ourselves, he was all alone and hurting."

Leonard said, "Keep pressure on his arm," as he passed it to Penny. Leonard grimaced as he started a more thorough survey of Sheldon's condition and soon located another wound in Sheldon's lower left abdomen, practically in his hip. It seemed to be the main source of the blood as the red liquid welled up and oozed from it the moment it was uncovered. There didn't seem to be any more injuries so he pressed another towel against it and they waited for the ambulance.

When the paramedics finally arrived after what seemed like hours spent in fear that Sheldon's chest would stop moving entirely, they wasted no time in situating Sheldon on the gurney and cutting away his clothes. Leonard and Penny held onto each other while IV line needles were stuck in both of Sheldon's arms and oxygen was applied and pressure dressings were torn open and plastic packaging was discarded on the floor.

The paramedics said the name of the hospital where they were taking Sheldon and then, just as abruptly, they were gone.

"How can one man hold so much blood?" Penny asked as she hugged Leonard more tightly and turned her face away with her eyes closed. "Especially considering how thin he is?"

"You'll be surprised," Leonard said, staring down at the mess on the floor as he held Penny close.

xxx

A few days after Sheldon was released from hospital with strict instructions not to do anything energetic and pop his stitches, Leonard once again found his friend unconscious on the floor in the living room of their apartment. This time it was in front of a whiteboard with some half finished formulae on it. An uncapped board marker lay nearby.

"Oh not again!" Leonard said in alarm as he crouched down and gently touched Sheldon's upper arm.

"I'm sleeping," an annoyed voice responded.

"On the floor, in the middle of the night?" Leonard grabbed Sheldon and helped him to sit up.

Sheldon held a hand to his head and blinked woozily. "I must've passed out."

"Come on," Leonard said as he pulled Sheldon's uninjured arm over his shoulders and awkwardly helped his injured friend limp over to the sofa and put him down in his seat. Leonard sat down too. "The doctors said you'd feel weak for a while and that you should rest as much as possible."

"But I don't want to rest. I'm bored."

"I know, but even the transfusions couldn't replace all the blood you lost."

Sheldon's eyes widened in alarm and he clamped his hand down tightly against the wound in his hip. "I wish you'd stop reminding me that I have other people's blood swilling around inside me! It's bad enough getting poked and prodded and stitched up like a stuffed toy!"

They sat in silence for a moment as Sheldon's words settled heavily over them. The floor had been cleaned, as had the carpet, walls and door outside the apartment, but Sheldon wasn't as quick to recover as the furnishings.

"I don't ever want to leave this apartment again," Sheldon said after a while.

"You're going to have to eventually."

"But what if it happens again?"

"They caught the men responsible the same evening you were attacked," Leonard said.

Sheldon gave a soft snort of derision, "Trying to use my bank card. Amateurs. But that still doesn't preclude the possibility that it might happen again."

"You can't let that stop you going out. Anything could happen, even if you stay here."

"That's not really helping your case."

"I'm just saying, you can't stop doing the things you did before, just because something bad happened once."

Sheldon looked down at his lap and clutched his injured arm to himself. "I nearly died. The doctor said if it had been any longer before I was found, I wouldn't have survived."

Leonard sighed and looked sad. It hadn't been easy for him either in the aftermath since the evening Sheldon had been so savagely attacked. "How about we do things in stages?"

Sheldon looked up. "What do you propose?"

"I go with you everywhere for the first few weeks until you feel comfortable with that. Then I'll accompany you on a few bus journeys until you're back to normal."

"I note at least two flaws in your plan - you have a car, it'd be pointless for you to come with me on the bus when you could drive me. And the first stage is how we did things anyway."

Leonard brightened up. "So you're okay to start the first stage tomorrow?"

"Well technically it's later today, as it's 2am."

"Today then?"

Sheldon mulled it over for a few seconds. "All right. But on the way home we're going to the train store and the comic book store so I can catch up with what I've missed."

"Fine."

"Oh and I need to go clothes shopping as I'm short one pair of pants and underwear and a couple of shirts. My jacket also got ruined. Every time I see my poorly stocked wardrobe it makes me shudder."

It made Leonard shudder too to think of what had happened to the clothes Sheldon was now missing. "Okay."

Sheldon listed off a few more places were he wanted to go and Leonard sighed as he agreed to them all, knowing that at this rate Sheldon was going to be back to his old self in no time at all.


	5. The Lizard-Bat Splicing

_A/N - Written for the annual 'Spook Me' challenge on Livejournal. I chose the creature prompt 'Dragon.' Not particularly Halloweeny I know! This one is a little lighter on the hurties for Sheldon as I know the last few stories have been quite painful!_

**The Lizard/Bat Splicing**

Howard leaned across the table in the cafeteria one day and lowered his voice as he spoke to Leonard, Raj and Sheldon, "I hear the biology department have been splicing the genes again."

"Did they grow a human ear on the back of a lizard?" Sheldon asked.

Howard raised his hand palm down, "Shhh! They were working with lizards, but from what I heard, they were mixing lizard and bat DNA and created a dragon!"

Sheldon shook his head in disbelief but Leonard said, "Wow! How do you know these things?"

"It escaped."

Raj stopped with his lettuce laden fork in mid air. "So you're saying that somewhere in Pasadena, there's a real, live dragon flying around?"

"Oh please," Sheldon interjected. "If it can really fly, it could be anywhere by now."

"But that's not all I heard," Howard lowered his voice even further so that his friends had to practically bump heads to hear him, except for Sheldon who remained sitting normally but with his eyes narrowed and a small frown on his face. "They trained it to respond to Skyrim Dragon Shouts."

Sheldon put his cutlery down with a loud clatter and stood up. "If you're going to invent wild stories, at least make them slightly plausible. I think I'll eat my lunch elsewhere today." And with that, he left the room.

xxx

When they got home that day, Leonard called out, "Od Ah Viing!" in a loud voice the moment he left the car. Sheldon winced and looked up at the sky, but it was bright blue and clear.

"Do you seriously believe that they not only created a dragon, but that calling out will make it appear?"

Leonard grinned, "I can dream."

They entered the apartment block and checked their mail box before climbing the stairs. "What would you do if it came to you anyway?" Sheldon asked.

"Fus Ro Dah!"

Sheldon sighed. "The shout that pushes things back is not very effective against dragons."

Leonard grinned all the way back to the apartment and laughed as he opened the window and shouted "Oh Ah Viing!" again, leaving Sheldon with the impression that his room mate was now doing it purely to annoy him. But he was above such things and ignored it.

Around an hour later, Leonard came into the living room where Sheldon was working on his laptop. "I'm going out with Penny tonight. Do you have everything you need?"

"Aside from an ampoule of realism to inject into my room mate, I have everything."

Leonard grinned. "Well then, I'll see you later."

Then Sheldon was alone. As alone as a man with a thousand ideas and thoughts swirling around in his head could be.

Some time after Sheldon had finished his dinner, it felt like the room shook a little. He frowned and looked up from the computer he was working at once more and then dismissing it as a minor tectonic tremor, he went back to work. It happened again a few seconds later, but stronger this time. Some of the items on the bookcase rattled.

Sheldon jumped up and ran into his bedroom and grabbed the emergency preparedness kit. Then he went back into the living room and crawled under the table - no mean feat for a man as tall as him. He folded his limbs about himself and dragged the bag in as closely as he could. If the fore-shocks were anything to go by, it was going to be a hell of an earthquake. Then he heard it – sirens outside in the distance and a voice so loud and low that Sheldon felt it more than he heard it and the windows rattled in their frames.

"That doesn't sound like an earthquake," Sheldon said as he peered out from under the table. He was looking towards the window as it shattered spectacularly inwards, showering shards of glass across the room. Sheldon held up his hand to protect his face and felt the sharp bite as some of the glass cut him. He sucked in a pained breath and looked at his hand. The cuts weren't deep and hadn't bled much but they sure smarted.

Sound like a foghorn rent the air that was flowing in through the gap where the window used to be and it made Sheldon's hair stand on end. Then hot flames came licking at the window and Sheldon knew without a doubt that what he had felt was no earthquake.

_What the hell?_ he thought as he rolled out from under the table and unfolded himself like a giant spider. Throwing caution to the wind he shouted "Fus Ro Dah!" at the window.

A massive scaly head drew level and peered in at him. The large yellow slitted eyes were on either side of the creature's head so it could only glare at him with one. The eye narrowed and large sharp teeth were bared as it growled in that same almost sub-audible noise that Sheldon had heard earlier. But this time it was right near him and he felt it reverberating in his chest and it made him physically stagger backwards.

"This is _my_ spot!" Sheldon shouted, feeling braver than he should by any rights be feeling, but he had important things to protect. "And my stuff! Be gone!"

The dragon puffed out a breath that made hot smoke flow in through the window. Sheldon glanced around for something he might use to get rid of the monster leering at him as his shouting was clearly not working as effectively as Leonard's summoning shouts. The cushions were too soft, the coffee table was too heavy for his insubstantial muscles and the cutlery from the kitchen was too small... then his eyes fell on the Game of Thrones sword hanging on the wall by the door.

Sheldon ran over and took it from the display mount. It was heavy, but he'd held it aloft before to ward off Evil Wil Wheaton so he knew he was equal to it. But it was unwieldy and blunt and Sheldon wasn't even sure it wouldn't just snap the moment he used it, but he didn't have a lot of choice. The monstrous creature outside his window was turning its head and Sheldon knew that if it was truly a real dragon, he'd be turned into chargrill crispy human very soon.

"Fus Ro DAH!" Sheldon shouted once more as he ran at the thing and pointed the sword tip towards the scaly head. He closed his eyes as he got near and there was a loud grunting sound the moment the sword hit something and arrested Sheldon's forward motion.

Sheldon opened his eyes, breathing hard and frowned. He'd jabbed the sword into the monster's nostril.

"RAWR!" the dragon said, and, "GRROAR!"

Sheldon was blasted off his feet by the sound and landed heavily a few metres away. The sword fell from his grip and landed with a dull chime just out of reach. The last Sheldon saw of the creature was four clawed feet climbing up the building and a long spiky tail whipping past the window. The building shook with each step the monster took.

Sheldon lay on the floor for a few minutes, getting his breath back and checking each of his limbs in turn to make sure they were all still present and correct. After taking full stock, the damage report was completed and Sheldon found that he'd sustained a few bruises and an aching arm, but nothing too serious.

Just when he'd started to relax and think that the thing had given up and flown off, Sheldon heard more loud roaring coming from above. There was a distinctive sound of crackling flames and a woman in the apartment above his screamed. Sheldon went to the door and saw the people from the other apartments running down the stairs. "What's going on?" he asked.

"It's tearing the building apart!" a woman shouted frantically as she ran past him down the stairs.

"But my stuff," Sheldon said sadly. "And my spot. If the dragon destroys the building, everything will be gone." And he couldn't have that. It'd taken him a long time to find this apartment and even longer to accumulate the many and wondrous treasures contained therein. Sheldon stood up to his full height and stuck out his chest proudly, although it didn't stick out that much. "Nothing will take it away from me."

He knew what he had to do.

Sheldon went to his room and grabbed the life-size Captain America shield from under the bed. He went back into the living room and rescued the Game of Thrones sword from its resting place. As an afterthought, he grabbed the plastic hard hat from out of the emergency preparedness kit. Then before he had a chance to change his mind, he began the trek up the stairs to face his fate. Images of Frodo climbing Mount Doom with Sam flashed before his eyes. Then of Spock going into the radiation chamber to save the Enterprise. And of Harry Potter waiting to face the Horntail. All of them knew that they were almost certainly about to die, but they also knew that their causes were ones worthy of their lives.

Sheldon found some ceiling tiles on the ground when he got to the top floor. Another one fell down and landed on his hard hat and he sure was glad he'd decided to wear it to protect his very valuable brain cells. The sounds were louder up here, and the building shook more intensely from the onslaught of whatever the dragon was doing to it.

Before Sheldon could change his mind, he held the round shield up and pushed open the roof access door.

The dragon was smaller than he'd imagined from what he'd seen of it, but it still had a body as big as a car with long legs attached. The tail and unfurled wings made it even bigger and Sheldon felt his will wavering. The creature's head had a frill of spikes around it and gooey blackish-red blood dripped down from its smoking nostril where Sheldon had poked it.

"RRRRR! GRRRR!" It said as it ripped up an air conditioning vent and tossed it over the side of the building.

Sheldon mustered up all his flagging courage to squeak, "Be gone, foul beast!"

Despite his plea not being particularly loud, the monster heard him and stomped and scratched its claws on the roof as it turned towards him. Sheldon held up the sword and shield as the dragon took in a breath and then exhaled flames which licked out towards him in a crackling sigh. Sheldon dropped to a crouch and curled himself up as small as he could behind the shield, but he still got slightly singed around the edges and the shield burned red hot against his arm, making him drop it with a cry of pain. There was a hole in his shirt at the sleeve and an angry red/black burn mark on his left arm which now hung uselessly by his side.

"I said go away," Sheldon cried with more strength than he thought was possible. He brandished the sword. "Or I'll stick this up the other nostril!"

The dragon ran at him and swiped a hand across his chest, but Sheldon fell down just out of reach and it missed. The thing snapped its jaws at him, but all that it got was the blade of the sword and no tasty human pieces got caught in its teeth. Sheldon was trembling with adrenaline by now and his voice was more commanding as he shouted at it, "This is my spot, not yours! So get lost!"

The dragon tried to eat Sheldon once more and growled as it tasted the blade again which was beginning to look a little worse for wear - all notched and cracked. Sheldon made a mental note to send a scathing letter to Stuart at the Comic Book Store about selling cheap knockoffs. He pushed forwards with the sword stuck in the dragon's mouth and kept pushing even when he encountered resistance. He yelped and let go when the sharp edge of a tooth grazed his hand.

The dragon reared back with the sword still embedded in its upper mouth and let out a few distressed roars before it closed its eyes and collapsed, making the roof shake.

Sheldon lay panting and watched as the dragon disintegrated before his eyes and the ashes blew away on a breeze. A bright light came from it and enveloped the roof space before it coalesced and went straight for Sheldon. Sheldon closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as the light was absorbed by his body.

"Oh my god, Sheldon!" A woman's voice called out.

"He's not... is he?" A man asked.

"Penny... Leonard..." Sheldon said from where he lay. Now that the adrenaline from the fight was dissipating, he could feel the damaged sections of his body reporting in. The worst was his burnt arm, followed by his hand, and then just about everything else was either throbbing or aching at various intensities.

"You slayed the dragon!" Leonard said.

"I think he's hurt," Penny said as she crouched down next to him.

"I got a dragon soul," Sheldon said quietly. "Does this mean I'm Dragonborn?"

"I think he's delirious," Penny said to Leonard. "Should I go and get help while you stay with him?"

"No no, I think he's going to be just fine."

Sheldon felt a hand touching his upper arm and Leonard sing-songed, "Is there anybody home? Sheldon?"

"Fus Ro Dah," Sheldon said quietly. "I want a refund on that sword."

Leonard and Penny helped Sheldon to stand up and walk down the stairs to where the ambulances were tending to those who'd been hit be debris or cut and burned by the monster. Leonard guided Sheldon to the nearest available EMT and sat him down on the back step of the ambulance to get his wounds tended. The cuts on his hands were gently cleaned and thin gauze bandages wrapped around them. The burn on his arm was deemed to be more serious though as it was large and a deep angry red colour and Sheldon's pain was continuing to escalate.

"I got a dragon soul," Sheldon said through gritted teeth as the EMT bundled him in the back of the ambulance and jabbed an IV line of fluids and painkillers into his uninjured arm. "Fus Ro Dah!" he said with conviction and Leonard was pushed backwards and fell over.

Penny wasn't looking very amused but Leonard laughed as he stood up. "Cool!" He addressed the EMT, "Can we ride with him in the ambulance?"

"Sure."

"My friend the dragon slayer!" Leonard said with a big grin as he took a seat next to Penny on the bench in the back of the ambulance next to the bed Sheldon was laying on. "I hope no one in the biology department is too upset you killed their prize pet. And I really hope they don't decide to splice together a bigger, badder version in retaliation for the slaying."

Sheldon glared at Leonard, "It wouldn't have been like this if you hadn't summoned the darn thing here. And I'll need a better sword and a shield that doesn't conduct heat next time."

"I'll see what I can do, especially since you fended it off from destroying my stuff as well as your own."

"I'll chip in," Penny said as she raised her hand. "Many cute, irreplaceable clothes were saved tonight."

"I didn't do it for you. I was defending my spot."

"You keep telling yourself that, sweetie," Penny said with a smile.


End file.
